


blood of my blood

by melforbes



Series: witch bedelia [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: the title is an outlander reference which is both fantastic and unfortunate, witch bedelia part 2 electric boogaloo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-06-26 15:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15665775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melforbes/pseuds/melforbes
Summary: With a glance over her shoulder, she smirks, eyes only partially visible, blanched fingers gripping her basket's handle. When the police launch an investigation, Hannibal wonders if they will note that the time of death coincided with the removal of all of the nearby mushrooms. He doubts they will.





	blood of my blood

She's practical when indulgent. By hand, she stitched insulated lining into her cloak of deep purple velvet; she wears hunting boots whose origin story is unknown to him beneath her skirts as she walks through snow, seeking out any flora remaining in the woods. She's hooded, holding a basket, the end of her blonde braid looking brash across her cloak, and when she comes upon another person - typically a hiker or hunter, sometimes a local who has a cabin nearby and tries to talk her up - she speaks to them briefly, pulls her hood away, gives them the little warm smile that drew him in the first time they met. Given her business, he knows she values in her charisma, but that value has grown twofold, her social prowess giving him an opportunity to hide, to position himself, to ultimately strike. Blood and snow, an interesting aesthetic. He watches her crouch alongside the most recent kill, a sloppy one, someone taken too soon. Because the man reached toward Bedelia, not in a complimentary way even if he thought that had been his intention, Hannibal had his timing thrown off, so the man sputtered into death, not going softly, asking for mercy with a _what the fuck_  while Bedelia loomed above, still holding her basket, still acting businesslike. 

"Possessive," she comments almost indifferently, pulling her hood back up, walking toward a tree littered with turkey's tail. 

Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, he says, "I wouldn't risk discovery for just anyone."

With a glance over her shoulder, she smirks, eyes only partially visible, blanched fingers gripping her basket's handle. When the police launch an investigation, Hannibal wonders if they will note that the time of death coincided with the removal of all of the nearby mushrooms. He doubts they will.

At home, she boils water for tea, fresh pine needles resting in a bowl on the counter. Even if he can't relish in the taste, he can still enjoy the smell, the way it warms their home, how it draws the cats into the kitchen; they congregate at her feet, mewling, searching for food. Outside, the snow around the house has grown dense; he had to shovel a path from the porch to the parked cars, dig each car out, cover hers to avoid tarnish, and for the remainder of the season, perhaps some of the next one as well, her herb garden will remain dormant, just waiting for the next time it will be graced with sunlight. All around the house, they have bundles of herbs hanging to dry, scents of lavender, chamomile, and mint lining the hallways. She delicately drops the needles into the pot, one of the cats pawing up the leg of her skirt, hushes them as she puts on the lid. Setting a cook-timer - a twist kind, shaped like a tomato, so worn from her work that her fingerprints are forever ingrained in its surface - and leaving it on the counter, she goes to lift up the impatient cat, holding it against her chest, stroking its back. When she joins him at the kitchen table, sitting in a chair alongside him, she lets the cat nuzzle at her neck, making Bedelia's lips prick into a smile. 

"I've never asked," he says, "but how have you acquired so many cats?"

She gives a knowing look, understands that her flock is much larger than one would expect. On the record player, he has a record of Mozart's string quartet pieces playing, something he picked up in the city, what he cooked her dinner to last night. Her rule: he cannot pick the music while she is working, but he _can_  while he cooks. Otherwise, they tend to replay what's already there. 

"They're runaways, most of them," she says, looking down at this one, a grey tabby. "They leave their homes and come here. Sometimes, owners go looking, but most often, they're abandoned altogether. I never can turn one away."

At first, he had trouble adjusting to the atmosphere, to how she cooked the cats dinner each night alongside whatever she was making for herself, how all of the cats roamed free throughout the property but always returned at night, nestling into the beds and hammocks littered throughout the house, finding a warm perch and staying there all night. Luckily, their bedroom is a safe haven, the cats never entering the room despite how the door tends to remain open; the closest any will come is to the doorway, where they'll mewl on mornings when she's slept past their usual breakfast time. Nonetheless, the cats will climb onto his lap if he stays in the living room too long, and on the off-chance that they're together in the study - all lined with books on the walls, grimoires and folktales and anatomical guides, and furnished with a leather couch and dark-wooded desk, old journals stacked haphazardly on top - the cats will interrupt much of anything, wedging their way in between entwined bodies, scratching at someone's bare leg. He has a small scar on the back of his thigh now, given to him by the black cat, the one who stills suspects him of what he cannot know. Bedelia was surprised to learn that he could bleed.

"Do they all have names?" he asks.

He's never heard her refer to them by name, and none of them have collars, but he assumes that at least a few are named.

"Yes, each one," she says but doesn't elaborate.

Nodding toward the cat in her arms, he asks, "Who is this?"

She rubs beneath the tabby's chin, making the cat's eyes close in contentedness.

"This is Nuala," she says. "Her family abandoned her when they moved away from town. At first, she was so skittish; she would come to the porch-steps but only that far, and I had to leave food out and wait inside, watching from the windows to make sure she would eat. I was so relieved when she finally came in."

"Which one scratched me?" he asks.

The timer dings; Bedelia brings Nuala back to the floor, where the cat walks toward the radiator and sits down, warming up. Returning to the stove, Bedelia says, "Morgana. She's suspicious of everyone."

Even after living in this home for a month, he still finds that Morgana looks at him as if he's a traitor, that the cat will mewl at him each time he leaves the house as if asking him not to come back. While Bedelia strains the tea, pours two cups even though he won't be drinking any, he wonders if there's something he can do to bring the cat around to him, if he could offer a treat or maybe even a feather. Don't cats like feathers? The orange tabby likes playing with shoelaces. Maybe Morgana would like a shoelace.

In bed that night, Bedelia reaches for him, the windows growing drafty, the room cold. _Warm me up,_  she doesn't say; he pulls the comforter over her shoulders, leans closer to her, rests his arm at the small of her back, their foreheads together. A hearty winter dinner, reading together in the living room, finishing the last of one of her orders, their Saturday nights are moderate and simple, usual togetherness featuring a weekend lull in activity. Tomorrow morning, he'll make her breakfast, shakshuka to finish off the rest of the eggs, and then, they'll keep the fire going, stay warm in the living room, not get dressed all day. Come Monday, she'll be working again, and he'll chart out the remainder of their week, deciding when to hunt, figuring out when to buy groceries. He knows already that they need cat food, and eggs too. If he's remembering correctly, she needs to wash her hair tomorrow. 

"We should hang lights," she says, leaning into his touch. 

In merely hours, December will come; he's been here with her for a month. Though he mentioned celebrating, she denied such frivolities, claiming that the kennel bill for all of the cats would be astronomical, but they both know she would never put them in a kennel, that the cats know how to feed themselves. Nova Scotia, he thinks, maybe for her birthday instead, or Newfoundland if they can manage a flight. All too often, she mentions how much she misses the ocean. 

"Tomorrow," he says.

She has a few strings in the basement, all white lights. Hung on the porch railing, they'll look beautiful, all lit up across from the graveyard. 

Gently, she takes his face in her hand, kisses him goodnight, turns over so that he can spoon her warm. In this weather, she seems to always be cold, wearing Irish sweaters over her dresses and thick wool socks around the house. He'll bring her tea to keep her warm while she works, snow outside falling, her knuckles tense with the weather. Nowadays, he tends to find splinters in the trunk of his car, left from when he brought chopped wood for the fire home. Though he doesn't know yet if she celebrates winter holidays, he saw a pair of moonstone earrings at a shop in town last week, and they're wrapped up already, sitting beneath his pants in their dresser until he can give them to her. 

Her neck smells of the rosewater she sprays on her skin every morning and night, the thick cream she puts on every evening. Even after only a month, he's managed to memorize these parts of her, the feeling of her clothes against his hands, the scent of her skin. Of course, his previous life is familiar, but it feels far-off, part of a different lifetime. When he wakes now, either she's alongside him, or she's tending to fussy, hungry cats, or she's sitting in the kitchen, sipping tea and reading a book in an archaic language. There's life where he lives now, and lavender-scented handmade candles, and crystals, and drying herbs. He has someone to cook for. He has someone to love. 

She'll fall asleep first. Eventually, he'll let go of her, move to his side of the bed, and when he wakes in the morning, he'll look over to see her there, sleepy-eyed and clingy, reaching out for him to say good morning. No work on Sundays, nowhere to be.

He almost wishes that he didn't need to sleep. 

* * *

When she goes for the paper on Sunday morning, pads over the cool planks of the porch in her shearling slippers, she stares down the rolled-up headline, keeps a cautious distance from the paper as if it were an animal showing teeth. They knew that this day would come eventually, that enough deaths in the forest would raise suspicion, but as she gingerly picks up the paper, undoes its fold and reads the start of the article, she thinks it all shouldn't have happened this fast. Since he decided to stay, they've kept a plan of sorts: they hunt and forage together once a week, varying the days so that they hold no pattern, and in the interim, he takes the blood of cows, pigs, whatever animal they can manage. He feeds when he needs to, but he doesn't hunt unless she's there, unless they've made a plan together. But now, the police are growing suspicious; they're reporting suspicious animal attacks in the woods, claiming that citizens should steer clear while patrols seek out catamounts. She knows they'll never find one; what she doesn't know is where else to hunt.

Bringing the paper inside, she can smell breakfast, something savory for Sunday morning, the kettle close to boiling. Though he has no use for food, he still cooks for her, usually multiple times a day; when she's working, he'll bring her a sandwich at midday, a full plate if she has time, always something fresh and seasonal. He's asked about redoing the kitchen more times than she can count, claiming that another stove - and potentially induction tops - could aid in the business-life balance, and even more times, she's brushed him off, citing the cost, the timeline, the effort as reasons not to. So far, her only distinction in the kitchen is that the Le Creusets are exclusively used for food while the aging cast-irons are exclusively used for work; if she needs to differentiate cook-tops, it'll be too much. And her kitchen is perfectly fine anyway. There's no need for the expense.  

She sets the paper on the kitchen table, where two cats begin to paw at the pages; he's stirring shakshuka on the stove, eggs at the ready alongside him, so she takes this moment of interim to walk up alongside him, wrap her arms around him, interrupt him. Of course, his stirring stills, and he leaves the wooden spoon behind, the handle at the edge of the pan, so that he can pull her toward himself. Behind his back, she snaps her fingers, and the spoon takes to its stirring again, all of its own accord. He's so warm, his big arms enveloping her, the scent of him making her sigh in relief. Though he's only been here a month, she feels him in every creak of the house, in the way her bed naturally dips now; his presence seems to have been almost prophesied, as if the moments before she met him were intended to be lonely, as if this is something she'd been meant to wait for. Of course, there had been others before him, but those others would make the cats hiss, or would take all of the hot water right before she bathed, or would use the wrong pans on the stove. After them, he came into her life, and now, she can't imagine the emptiness of the house before, can't remember what it felt like to go whole days without speaking to another person. She doesn't want to know what waking to a lonely house would feel like again. She doesn't want to go to bed without him. Sometimes, if he comes up to the bedroom later than she does, she finds that she can't sleep until he's there. Though it should feel unraveling, uncouth, she breathes into it and finds that all she feels is deep, relieving comfort. They've found each other, even if neither realized that they were looking. There's nowhere better for either of them to be.

Leaning down, he kisses her gently, a soft _good morning_  to match the previous few of today. She has to stand on tiptoe to meet him, his arms supporting her, so he lifts her gently to an open part of the kitchen counter, lets her sit there while he kisses her in the way that she deserves to be kissed, his hands big and wide at her hips, her legs wrapped around his. On Sundays, they have no agenda, all of the time meant for reading, painting, foraging, whatever they can think of, and as he takes a deep breath, fingertips pressed hard against her body, she knows well enough what's on his mind. When he brings a hand to her breast, thumb tracing in circles that make her toes curl, she pulls away.

"Breakfast," she insists, voice low and husky. Of course, he'll see through her, but she's _hungry,_  and they need to talk. 

"It can stew a little longer," he says, but she brings her palms to his chest, a distinct _not right now,_  so he pulls away - agonizes a little, probably for drama's sake, but she likes it, crosses her legs, leans back against the kitchen wall so that she can watch him from this new angle. He's a fantastic cook, something that shocked her the first time he made her breakfast; though he himself hasn't eaten for decades, he can sear a perfectly rare steak, filet whole fish, preserve the berries from her garden. Despite how adept she already is at cooking, she prefers when he cooks, likes to sit at the kitchen table and read while he makes dinner, looking up at him periodically to watch the way his taut muscles move. He's in a tee shirt, and as he takes eggs from the carton, as he cracks one, she watches the tension beneath his skin, labels each muscle, shifts where she sits, fidgets. 

"If we were to install another stove," he says, cracking the next egg, "it would fit right where you are now, no deficit in space."

She extends her leg toward him, toes against his quadricep. She doesn't want to talk about kitchen remodeling. From the table, the cats leap down, making themselves scarce. 

"I don't want to install another stove," she repeats, hopefully for the last time. He doesn't have a job, and she doesn't want another stove. Digging her toes into his thigh, she watches him crack another egg, thinks he's taking his time just so he can make a point.

"If we install another stove," he says, "you could work while I make dinner."  

"I rarely work so late in the evening."

"If business is very good, you do."

He goes to throw away the eggshells, to wash his hands, so she crosses her legs, leans back. Depending on how hot the stove is, the whites could take fifteen, maybe twenty minutes to set, the yolks a bit longer. When he returns to the stove, puts a lid over the cast-iron, she reaches for his hand, then pulls him toward her, bringing his palm beneath her robe and shift, flush with her breast. 

Smirking at the change in attitude, at how insistent she is, he echoes, "Breakfast."

She hums a response as he steps between her legs, then kisses him, arms around the back of his neck, his hand still warm and weighty against her breast. Times before, he told her that he likes the way she sounds when he kisses her neck, how breathless she grows, how she just starts to lose her control; his mouth is warm when it moves to her jaw, one hand on her chest while the other comes to rest on her inner thigh. _Just touch me,_  she wants to tell him, but she knows this goes both ways, that all of the times she's spent teasing him, all of the moments in which she's gone agonizingly slow, will be repaid. As he kisses her, he thumbs the skin of her inner thigh, right where the valley of a stretch mark sits, so she closes her eyes, lessens the stimulation, heightens her focus. She can feel each ministration, every twitch and turn, and she wants him badly enough that he doesn't need to agonize over this, to make her feel everything at once. But he will, of course. When he nips at her neck, she lets out a forceful breath, and that's enough to make him move his fingers from her thigh to between her legs. _Finally,_  she thinks with relief as he runs his thumb down her sex in one smooth motion. She's not in a mood to wait.

After he serves her breakfast, pan set atop an old quilted potholder on her kitchen table, cats ambling back in, she pushes the paper towards him, goes back to business.

"We need to slow down," she says, taking a piece of crusty bread - baked yesterday, kneaded by him - and dipping it into the sauce. "Or find somewhere else to go."

He shrugs it off, pushes the paper away. "I am no catamount."

"It doesn't matter what you are," she says. Miraculously, the yolks are still a bit runny. It's not as if they rushed. "What matters is that they're growing suspicious, and if we have to answer any of their inquiries, this will become a much larger conversation. And I have no desire to have that conversation."

At first, it had felt abnormal to eat in front of him while he had nothing, not even a glass of water, but now, she finds it quotidian, sometimes feels off-kilter if he brings one of his glasses to the table and drinks in front of her. She's grown accustomed to the smell, bitter and metallic, like a chain-link fence, like the engine of her car. Though she understands that at any point he could look to her for his own vitality, she knows with conviction that he won't. 

"Do you have any ideas?" he asks, which means he doesn't. Of course, she's the local, but it would be convenient if he could solve his own problem. For once.

She sighs, offers, "We could follow the trail."

"At this time of year, will it be empty?"

"We could go into a different portion of the woods."

"Will it be patrolled?"

"If we take a trip to another state," she says, "we could avoid suspicion." 

"Do you know of anywhere out of state?"

It was astonishingly simple in the end: to find someplace to hunt, ask fellow hunters. At the local tack shop's firearms section, he inquired about places to hunt, somewhere far-off, maybe somewhere to take the missus for a weekend. There's a place up north, right at the Vermont border, where some guys go for weekends, but nowadays, it's all closed up, the place too bare-bones for much fun in the winter. Though there isn't running water or refrigeration, there's a decent fireplace, and the cabin could be made comfortable, provided that the so-called _vacationers_  bring their own inflatable mattress and warm clothes. It's not a long term solution, but for now, until they can find somewhere else, it will work.

On Wednesday, he packs his car with enough water for a few days, shelf-stable food for her, sheets and a duvet to go over a Walmart-purchased inflatable mattress. They packed one of her suitcases, each putting in plenty of warm clothes; he likes the way all of their things look together, how her socks mesh with his, how she brings lotion even though they have no use for beauty products, how he'll be able to pick out a sweater of his and have it smell like her. For the two days that they'll be gone, the cats will be alright alone, plenty of food left out for them, Morgana policing the rations. They'll be back soon, as soon as they can be. Next week, they'll find somewhere closer or make other arrangements, but for now, the little cabin will work.

He inflates the mattress while she brings in their bags from the car, just food and winter clothes, nothing too extensive. They're parked fairly far away, the roads leading to the cabin having not been plowed, and as she sets down the bags, she huffs a breath, tired and sweaty from the exertion. Leaving the bags in the corner, she goes to him, helps him put sheets and an old comforter over the mattress. The cabin is small and made to be just one room, no kitchen or bathroom but a counter left open for portable stoves. Without the fire going, the whole place is cold and dark, filled with unfinished wood and cobwebs, an outdoorsman's kind of place. When they took a weekend trip to Boston a few weeks ago, she refused to stay even in the Marriott. They certainly didn't choose this kind of accommodation.

But neither of them will complain; instead, she opts for dry socks, woolen long-johns hidden beneath her skirt, a neck warmer kept at the clasp of her cloak. With the woods being so vast and empty, they're going to have a hard time coming upon other people; at best, they'll find a pair of hunters, but Hannibal is will need to venture deep into the woods to find someone like that, someone a bit closer to civilization. Though they're together for a significant portion of the walk, helping each other through deep snow, her basket steadily filling with spare flora, it's too time-consuming to stick together given that the sun's going to set early; they break off as she finds oyster mushrooms on a tree, and while he disappears down a snow-covered slope, she figures it'll be half an hour before she hears some kind of scream, then finds him making his way back to the cabin, passing by her and offering to carry the basket back. 

With everything here so untouched, her finds are exquisite, everything in its fullest growth. When she gets home, she'll dry out the pine needles, see what she can do with each mushroom. By the time she runs out of good trees, has a full basket and nothing left to claim, she checks her watch, then grimaces at the time; it's nearing four in the afternoon, and the sun will set in half an hour. Looking around, she can't find him within her sight, so she follows his footprints in the snow, the only footprints around.

Calling his name, she wades through the snow, the sun started to set through the dark, leafless trees, and now, she's growing concerned, uncomfortable with the idea of him out here alone. Though he could defend himself, she would worry all night, scared that something went awry, scared that they've been found out, scared that he might not come back. _He'll come back,_  she assures herself because she knows he will, _but only if he's able to._  And if something's happened, he may not be able to.

She calls out for him again, the sky growing darker, and eventually, she hears something, something muted, something pained, so she staggers to a halt, looks around, manages to find him on the ground, body blending in with fallen trees. He's on his back and hurt, though she doesn't know how badly. Through the snow, she races to him, heart racing, breath coming in short bursts. 

"What happened?" she asks as she crouches next to him, but he can't manage much speech, not with how agonized he looks, not with the blood he's losing. A bear trap, maybe a wolf trap, she doesn't know, is clasped around his lower leg, blood oozing into a puddle beneath him; he must've fallen into the trap, and now, he's bleeding more than she knew he was capable of bleeding, and he's in too much pain to remove the trap himself. The metal spikes never went deep enough to harm the bone, but they dug in enough to create a long gash, one in which the trap is still stuck. Overlooking her medical training, knowing they need to cover everything up, she pulls the trap from his leg, making him scream with pain, the blood flow growing greater. He can't die like this, so the loss is negligible; however, she can see how weak he's already grown, and she'll need to do something urgently, fearing what could happen if she doesn't. 

The wound is deep, so she can't just try to stop the bleeding; he'll need stitches, urgent ones, though she's not sure how his body would handle such a thing. Despite how she feels she knows him, she staggers at how little she really understands about him, about how his tones about his family are clipped, about how she doesn't know how vital this is to him. When she meets his gaze, his skin is the color of the snow, a sickly white; in most circumstances, this kind of blood loss wouldn't lead to that discoloration so obviously. He needs those stitches even more urgently than she originally thought.

"Can you walk?" she asks, but before he can answer, she abandons her basket, lifts him from beneath his underarms. Though she's strong enough to carry him, he's too tall, too bulky for her to carry; as she drags him through the snow, a trail of blood follows them all-too-closely, blood being shed, blood that hardly even looks alive anymore. It oxidizes, steaming red to cold brown, and if he weren't so limp beneath her, she would ask about the mechanics of it, the science of his body. He's bound to have bled like this before. Is the blood of his body nutritive or life-sustaining? Of all the strange books she owns, somehow she lacks one on vampiric sciences. If the library in town hadn't been so suspicious of her during her last visit there, she would ask if they had any information on such a thing.

But she can't look to books now, not as she presses open the cabin's door and pulls him inside, not as his blood pools on the unfinished floorboards. Because of the nature of the sport it supports, this cabin has seen plenty of blood before; if anyone were to forensically search this place, would they pick up on his blood or on that of the last cow he took sustenance from, or would they find his own blood? An odd thing it would be, finding cow's blood miles upon miles away from the last cow, the last people to stay here being a couple who sported old-bodied cars and high-fashion. They're spreading suspicion further throughout the state. They're going to be-

Pushing her thoughts away, she leaves him behind momentarily, goes for the first-aid kid she brought for her own protection, hardly thinking he would need it. If she weren't a doctor, she wouldn't have a needle and sparse thread in the box, and if she weren't a witch, the so-called /box/ wouldn't be wooden and engraved, classic Band-Aids covered in dried rose petals, a whole vial of salt left at the bottom of the kit. 

"Are you prone to infection?" she calls over to him, her voice harried and uncomfortable; she doesn't sound like herself, knows that he'll hear the intrepid fear in her tone.

In response, he manages a weak _unsure_  or something along those lines, she can't hear him well enough, but even if she could, she wouldn't be able to comprehend his speech, not while pulling a needle and thread from her kit, not while hesitating at one last piece of equipment, something she hadn't brought for the purpose that comes to mind. Impulsively, she picks that piece up and returns to where she left him, his eyes hooded with exhaustion, his skin looking pale.

He can't die; for now, and because she can't do this any other way, she'll assume his body is not prone to infection. Though she's rarely had a chance to use the skill, she's surprisingly good at suturing, hands steady and nimble, the seep of a wound uninspiring to her, but now, she hesitates because of how he flinches. _Can you feel pain?_  she wonders, then curses herself for not knowing. When she pulls the thread through, he stirs uncomfortably, and she has to force him down, palm at his chest, insistent words on her lips. He can't die, not in this way, but she's never seen him look so weak before, and he feels horribly fragile beneath her, as if too drastic a movement would make him fall apart. 

She'll kill whoever set that trap, and after she does so, she'll siphon every last drop of their blood, and she'll bring it to him, serve it to him in a pewter glass. As she ties off the stitches, she thinks of how she would do it, stake to the heart for the poetry, a discreet poison if it meant she could watch this person suffer. The bloodied needle cast-off on the floor, the floorboards stained and hot, she moves closer to him, her hip alongside his head, her palm coming to the side of his face. He still looks pale, disconcertingly so, and she knows that he can't speak, can't think either, that he's too weak. Though he won't die, he won't do much of anything else either. Is there a healing process? She's unsure if what's best to do is to wait or to try to administer something else. But what would she even administer?

As his lips come to her palm, she looks down, blushes. A kiss. Sweet. His arm is deadweight when it comes to hers, pulling her to him with the last of his energy, lips at her wrist. No, not lips, mouth, whole mouth. Flinching at the contact, she pulls away, and he's too weak to counter, weak enough that he's reached pure instinct, and here she is, alive and well, plenty of what could help him pumping warmly beneath her skin.

_Would you ever do it?_  she asked once, a casual remark. She'd thought he wouldn't, but it was a fair question nonetheless. 

_Do what?_  he asked, like he always does. A clarification, making her say it. He doesn't let her be vague.

_Would you ever take my blood?_  she asked.

He thought over the question for a moment, not so much pondering his answer but instead pondering its explanation. 

_No,_  he said, _for I don't feed in divided ways, and someone would miss you._

Yes, he would miss her. It's never been a question between them since. Even his kills are based in practiced sociopathy; he feeds on those who won't be missed, those whose deaths can be explained in many other ways, and even then, he avoids human kills whenever possible, spent many of his first years like this taking only pig's blood. He would never kill her. It's almost staggering, how she can have a partner whose origins are in violence yet whose life is remarkably less violent that than of other men she's known. If he had any other option, he would choose to never hurt her.

But now, he doesn't have another option, and as she takes her last piece of equipment, a home blood-draw kit, she knows she doesn't have another option either. Pulling back her sleeve, she swabs her antecubital region, pierces her own skin with practiced ease. The apparatus is streamlined and simple; instead of a vial, she has his mouth, lets her blood drip from the piping to his lips, his eyes closing with relief. To keep tension, she moves her hand through his hair, bloodletting in a not-quite-ideal position, taking deep breaths to calm herself. After a certain amount of time, long before any harm could be done to her, she'll stop, this dose being enough to get him speaking again, enough to get by. The relief she feels as he swallows is more than worth the sensation of a single prick. 

She counts the seconds while stroking his hair, while flexing her larger muscles in hope that she won't faint. All around them, the cabin is silent, uncomfortably holding the aroma of bloodshed, cobwebs and dust in its corners. Outside, the world is still, almost tense, waiting on something she thinks may never happen. The trap must be abandoned somewhere now, bloody and marking a trail, white and cold against red and hot. 

When she stops the bleeding, holds a cotton ball against her arm, he looks better, a bit of color to his face, still exhausted and spent but at least aware of his surroundings, no longer so almost-vitally desperate. 

"If I ever meet who set that," she says, folding her arm, clotting the blood, "I will kill him."

He smirks softly.

"Possessive," he says.

The draw kit falls to the floor, ends up in the remains of bloody horror. Feeling spent as well, she leans to the floor, pulls herself alongside him, wraps an arm around his chest. Humming in agreement, she rests her chin on his shoulder, closes her eyes, forces herself to calm down.

"I wouldn't give my blood for just anyone," she says.

It feels like redemption to hear him laugh again.

* * *

She curls next to him on the air mattress, the hour too late to drive home, the amount of blood she's expended making her lethargic. With the fire going, they're both kept warm, but she huddles closer to him anyway, bodies flush beneath the goose down comforter. Even though he couldn't have died, even though she had plenty of control, she still can't pull herself away from him, not to eat, not to check on his wound. Luckily, he's clinging too, his weighty touch forcing her to relax.

"Has something like this ever happened before?" she asks, looking to him.

He's regained his color, doesn't look so exhausted and hurt anymore. In some ways, they're at the same baseline, both hurt and tired but both feeling solidarity in those emotions.

"No," he says, "not to this degree."

"I don't know if your body would be capable of infection."

"I have never been sick in that way, no."

"It's all so strange," she says, then corrects herself. "Not strange, just not my experience. And not something I've ever studied."

"Really?" he asks, interest piqued, a soft smile on his lips. "Then, what knowledge do you have?"

"I don't know," she says, blushing. There's a fine line between her medical degree and certain books on her shelf, and though she knows he won't disrespect her for her profession, that he admires what she does and what she's studied, she still has no desire to defend the difference between aromatherapy and, say, a medical text from the eighteenth century. "I've read hypotheses about werewolves."

"Read where?" 

"In books. I still have a few on my shelves."

"How old are they?"

She laughs under her breath, offers, "About three-hundred years."

"Do you find such books useful?"

"Sometimes," she says. "They offer perspective on the human perspective. Say more about their audience than they do about werewolves themselves."

Moving closer to him, she nestles, her arm draping over his stomach, their faces close. He smells of sweat and old wood and snow, cold snow, now melted on his clothes. They both should change. If they don't, they'll end up shivering through the night, the whole trip being a waste in the end. Still, she can't bring herself to move, the concept of getting up making her cringe enough that she clings closer. There's only one place for her right now, wet clothes and all. Everything else will have to wait.

"I feel as if I know nothing about you," she lets slip, almost a desperate plea, something that makes her cheeks go warm with embarrassment. "When I saw you, I didn't know what to do. How to treat you. I was so frightened."

His arm resting over hers, he gives her grounding weight, a gentle touch. He's still here, right here. 

"But it sneaks up on me," she continues, not knowing how she should stop. "At home, it feels as if I could never question you. There's nothing I don't already know, or that's how it feels. But there's so much I don't know about you, so much you don't know about me. I don't even know where to begin."

She takes a deep breath, adds, "But it feels as if I don't have to tell you anything. It feels as if you already know. I don't want to disrupt that."

As she exhales, he rubs his thumb along her arm, catching soft hairs, blood crusting beneath his fingernails, a primal reminder. They're both worse for wear, but they're together. It's more than enough.

"You'll never be less than enchanting to me," he says, voice quiet, slow in its lethargy, "no matter how much we know. You've given me everything."

She closes her eyes, taking him in, feeling the warmth. The safety, if she can label it as such. They can rest now.

"I love you," he says, voice so soft that she almost doesn't hear him say it.

For a moment, she's left in stunned silence, surprised he's never said it before, surprised that _she_  hasn't. It's natural, almost horribly so. She feels as if there's supposed to be hesitation, as if they need another month, but they don't. Even if he hasn't seen every part of her, even if there are still mysteries to him, those words feel viscerally true.

"I love you," she echoes, a bit dumbfounded. How else should someone respond to such a statement? She can't remember the last time she said such a thing to another person.

He faces her, soft smile on his lips, and kisses her gently, just for a moment, just to make his point clear. With their foreheads together, she closes her eyes, takes another deep breath. They're safe now. They're alright.

"We'll find our way," he assures her in the way he always does.

The fire crackles on behind them, the rest of the world left to be an unimportant blur.

* * *

She drives first, taking them out of the more rural areas and toward places without dirt roads. When they come to a cow pasture, one far enough from a farm that they'll go unnoticed, she parks on the side of the road, lets him out of the car, moves to the passenger's seat. She doesn't like to watch this when it involves animals. Even if humans end up in disbelief when his teeth pierce their necks, humans have still been primed for such an experience, the stories told over and over again, age-old tales that should lessen the shock a little bit. But animals? They have no precedent. When he leaves behind a dead cow, all of its blood drained, no one questions the death, but everyone feels their hands shake when thinking of how or why such a thing would occur. He's not even violent about it; he hits the proper areas, sucks, gets out with remarkable deftness. He doesn't make a mess. He doesn't cause unnecessary pain. Nonetheless, she can't watch when something is completely helpless, when something never had a chance to establish morals or mistakes. When they kill horrible people, she doesn't feel remorse, but when he returns to car, sits in the driver's seat, she feels as if, had someone not set that trap, this death would have been prevented.

As he pulls off of the road's shoulder, he takes her left hand in his right, kisses her knuckles gently. She's still lethargic from yesterday, one of the pillows propped up on the passenger's seat's door so that she can rest on the drive home. Around them, the roads are empty, plowed and worn; he holds her hand to his lips, lingering there. She wonders if he's looking for comfort, or if he's wanted to do this for hours and only now has the energy to do so.

"I think we should redo the kitchen," she comments, voice husky with exhaustion.

She can feel his smile against her hand.


End file.
